Description

When running the screen recording software "CamStudio" (http://camstudio.org/) or the screen sharing software "Unyte" (http://www.unyte.net/) in an Windows XP guest, the mouse pointer disappears within the guest.

It is not complete gone, i.e. when moving around, it will briefly show up sometimes, and it can be used even if not visible (tool tips appear, clicking works). But most of the time you just can't see it.

Wrt. screen sharing: the remote computer that the XP guest is sharing the view with *does* see the pointer.

Completely different configuration - same problem. Windows XP host, CentOS 5.2 guest. Display shared using Real VNC (but problem is present on local display as well). Started suddenly 11/11/2008, using v 2.0.2. Upgrade to 2.0.4 did not resolve. Built new VM and reinstalled CentOS, problem persists.

Uninstalled VirtualBox and reinstalled 1.6.6. Problem gone.
Uninstalled again and installed 2.0.2. Problem back.
Checked these combinations again with VMs for Ubuntu and CentOS Live, only 1.6.6 functions with reasonable response rate and mose tracking.

I can report a similar issue using dexpot. When switching virtual desktops, my mouse cursor disappears. Right clicking the desktop causes the cursor to show up again. Hardware acceleration is at full in display properties. I am using a Linux host (Ubuntu 9.04) with a windows XP guest. I am using Virtualbox V 3.0.2. Dexpot is free, so this issue should be easy to duplicate.

There are many tickets currently open that share this common symptom, ie the mouse becomes uncontrollable. The ticket numbers are: 4713, 4248, 2603, 4252, 3350, 2575, 4700, 2660, 2682, 4817. The issue goes back through many versions of VirtualBox.

Common themes appears to be: USB mice/device, screen capture to clipboard or just plain becoming erratic after time (memory leak?).

This bug should be upgraded to blocker priority as it is no longer possible to be productive in this unstable environment.

#4252 was closed as a duplicate, perhaps of this entry. It references a disappearing mouse cursor in a Windows machine that is sharing its desktop via Microsoft Live Meeting. I've seen that behavior in Windows 2003 as a guest inside of an Ubuntu 9.04 host running VirtualBox 3.0.4.

The workaround that I've been using is to start up TightVNC server on the guest machine, connect to it via a VNC client on the host, and the mouse cursor is visible from within the VNC client.

Yeah, the current behaviour for vboxnet is it doesn't require DHCP on the host as when you use host-only networking and start a VM with VirtualBox, the IP you assign in the global Preferences in VirtualBox would be assigned to software vouchers regardless of what IP it vboxnet has. So putting a 1.1.1.1 static IP there for nwam should be mainly ok.